It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak at this stage. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for the opportunity to return to the Bill, especially because it enables me to give a plaudit to the Government. The Minister would not have expected that.
We have debated the subject of family reunion on previous occasions, but I think the most recent was during the course of the EU withdrawal Bill, when the Minister responding to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and resisting his amendment, did not mention the pull factor, which on every other occasion that I can remember the Government have included in their argument. I do not subscribe to the pull factor, described by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as implausible. I hope that that was a significant omission.
11.30 am
The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is concerned that the Bill is too wide. It is certainly not intended to provide an open season or opportunity for corruption. I had read his amendment as suggesting that he thought there would be disproportionate numbers of family members of refugees—let us remember that we are talking about refugees, not migrants in the wider sense—and that that was why he would limit the number under Clause 1 to two per refugee.
I will comment on the numbers, but will first focus on the Bill’s objective, which I think will itself answer the noble Lord’s concerns. He called for precision, so I shall be precise about the objective. It is to enable families separated by circumstances which have led to refugee status being granted to an individual—in other words, very particular, extreme circumstances—to come together again. Although this may benefit the individual refugee who has reached the UK, that is not the whole picture. We all understand the concept of family and the importance of family life to a young person’s development. We talk about integration, which I think would be very difficult for a child or young person without a family.
There is any number of permutations, but let me get put just three to the Committee. A father reaches the UK as a refugee, leaving a mother and a son aged 17 and an unmarried daughter aged 22. Who of those three should remain in the war zone or a refugee camp, which is not a safe place, or try to make it alone, possibly with the intervention—I was going to say help—of smugglers? All of them are vulnerable.
Teenaged brothers leave their country of origin. They become separated en route and one makes it the UK. Eventually, he establishes that his parents and his baby sister are still alive in his original country. Where does one put the dividing line in that family?
A single boy reaches the UK. His father died in the war from which the boy escaped. His widowed mother is caring for three siblings. One could go on.
I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is seeking to find a happy medium, and that is the way that I would generally approach an issue, but I do not think it works in this context. He mentioned some migration figures and I am aware that he has asked a number of Questions for Written Answer, but I do not think that the numbers in those Answers or what he has said today give directly applicable detail.
I remind the Committee that on Second Reading, the Minister told the House the number of visas issued in family reunion cases outside the rules—because that is possible. They were 21 in 2015, 49 in 2016 and 49 up to September 2017. I understand that when the British Red Cross considered 91 cases involving 219 family members outside the UK, the family range was from one to eight and the average—noble Lords with a mathematical turn of mind will have got there—was about two and a half members per case.
For the Syrian resettlement programme, when the UNHCR submits families to the UK Government, our Government will accept families of up to six members
—above that, they take the matter case by case. In 2014, Care International measured the average family size of Syrians and very vulnerable host families in Jordan and found it to be 5.8.
The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, mentioned dependants, which is the last category in Clause 1(2): a dependent relative not otherwise listed. Dependants are not an unlimited group of people. The Home Office, the courts and indeed common sense interpret that word realistically, which means fairly narrowly, not in the way suggested.
I would like to think that the Bill will assist large numbers of people, but I doubt that that is the case, which is not to underestimate the importance to each individual affected. I understand that in Germany it was estimated last year that the profile of Syrian refugees was such that between 0.9 and 1.2 family members could ask for reunification. In the Netherlands, in 2016, the estimate was 1.2.
Last year, 794 children—that is those under 18—and 206 aged 18 were granted refugee status in the UK, so we are not talking large numbers at all. Kent County Council—and it should know—says that many unaccompanied children fear attempts to trace their family members in their country of origin because this could put those family members in danger, so they do not do so.
Noble Lords will understand that I am not saying that a limit on the numbers as proposed in the amendment would be okay because it would have no effect—I am not; I am merely trying to paint the picture.
I draw the Committee’s attention to who is family for the purposes of the Bill under Clause 1. It is not open-ended, it is not extensive, it could not be said to be an extended family. There are no cousins, for instance. The list in the clause is that set out in the EU directive on family reunification—to which we are not signatory. We are not talking about economic migrants, as has been suggested, because the sponsor must be a refugee.
The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, mentioned the capacity of the Home Office. I will leave it to the Minister to respond to that.
I am pleased that the noble Lord accepts the premise of the Bill that families belong together and that our country has a moral duty to recognise them. Accepting the thrust of the Bill and in the light of what I hope he will read as reassurances, I hope that he will accept that the amendment would not be appropriate.